Sirach — Chapter 27
Words Reveal the Heart
← Sirach 26 · Sirach: all chapters · Sirach 28 →
Hebrew–Greek comparison and notes · III. Wisdom
27:1 Many have sinned for profit, and the one who seeks to increase his gains will turn his eye away.
27:2 A peg will be fixed between the joints of stones, and sin will be squeezed between selling and buying.
27:3 Unless a person holds fast diligently in the fear of the Lord, his house will quickly be overthrown.
27:4 When a sieve is shaken, refuse remains; so a person’s rubbish remains in his reasoning.
27:5 A furnace tests a potter’s vessels, and a person’s testing is in his deliberation.
27:6 A tree’s fruit reveals its cultivation; so a word reveals the thought of a person’s heart.
27:7 Do not praise a man before he reasons, for this is the testing of human beings.
27:8 If you pursue what is right, you will attain it and put it on like a glorious robe reaching to the feet.
27:9 Birds will lodge with their like, and truth will return to those who practice it.
27:10 A lion lies in wait for prey; so sin lies in wait for those who do unjust things.
27:11 A godly person’s discourse is always wisdom, but a fool changes like the moon.
27:12 Among people without understanding, watch the time; among thoughtful people, linger.
27:13 Fools’ discourse is offensive, and their laughter is in sinful indulgence.
27:14 The talk of someone who swears many oaths will make hair stand up, and their quarrel makes one stop the ears.
27:15 The quarrel of the proud is bloodshed, and their mutual abuse is grievous to hear.
27:16 The one who reveals secrets has destroyed trust and will certainly not find a friend close to his soul.
27:17 Love a friend and keep faith with him; but if you reveal his secrets, do not pursue him afterward.
27:18 For as a person has lost his dead, so you have lost your neighbor’s friendship.
27:19 As you have released a bird from your hand, so you have let your neighbor go, and you will not catch him.
27:20 Do not pursue him, because he has gone far away and escaped like a gazelle from a trap.
27:21 For a wound can be bound up, and there is reconciliation after abuse, but the one who revealed secrets has lost hope.
27:22 The one who winks with his eye devises evil things, and no one will remove them from him.
27:23 Before your eyes he will make his mouth sweet and marvel at your words, but afterward he will twist his mouth and put a stumbling block in your words.
27:24 I have hated many things, but compared none to him; the Lord will hate him too.
27:25 The one who throws a stone upward throws it upon his own head, and a treacherous blow will open wounds.
27:26 The one who digs a pit will fall into it, and the one who sets a trap will be caught in it.
27:27 The one who does evil things will have them roll back upon him, and he will not know where they have come to him from.
27:28 Mockery and reproach await the proud, and retribution will lie in wait for him like a lion.
27:29 Those who rejoice at the fall of the godly will be caught in a trap, and pain will consume them before their death.
27:30 Resentment and wrath—these too are abominations, and a sinful man will hold them fast.
Source and editorial notes
Working translation preserved from the recovered manuscript of 8 September 2026. Declared source: Septuaginta, Rahlfs–Hanhart, 2006, Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, publisher’s Greek main text. Independent linguistic and critical-apparatus review remains outstanding. Source-access and reception claims in the inherited notes have not been freshly revalidated. Chapter and section headings are editorial.
The translator’s prologue is separate from the 51 chapters. Its eight source units map to publisher labels 1, 1a–1g; main-text 1:1 maps to 1h. Source 5:15 includes material often numbered 6:1, so chapter 6 begins at 6:2. Source label gaps are preserved; no text is invented.
27:2 Squeezed follows the pressure image of συντριβήσεται; the comparison is retained without substituting a new verb of concealment.
27:4 Reasoning or discussion renders λογισμός in this sequence about speech.
27:8 The full-length robe image is explicit.
27:18 His dead follows τὸν νεκρὸν αὐτοῦ; the comparison concerns irretrievable loss, not a supplied act of killing.
27:25 The second clause does not explicitly repeat whose wounds; no unprinted possessive is added.